I must say that i'm pretty impressed by the level of polish of your game. It's always nice the get some voices in short experiences, it gives an awesome immersive feeling and keep you in a flow of concentration. The camera work insentivises well the fact that we are entering in a disorienting and unknown place.
The kind of horror you invoke fits well with the context of your narrative and the old school animations provides a sort of uncannyness to the phenomenoms appearing on screen. I really liked the time distortion moment and how it was executed.
The only things that I would point out is that as a non native english speaker, it would have helped a bit to get some english subtitles backing the audio (but I get that for a jam project that's a bit picky aha)
I really enjoyed the time passed in this wrecked ship, congrats !
Thanks for your thoughtful critique! One of the things I was least sure about when I submitted the game was how well the horror elements worked, as a couple of them are a little goofy, so it's good to know that they don't feel too out of place.
And yeah. I definitely agree that subtitles would have been a good addition; even as a native English speaker I prefer to have them. When I first added the voiceover I planned to add subtitles to go with it, but it was just one of those things that I had to cut due to time constraints! Hope it wasn't too hard to follow what was going on, either way.
Very nice, I've been following your progress as a fellow Unreal dev - I appreciate how authentic you were able to get the PS1-look and in general the atmosphere and vibe of this project is very well done! In particular, I love the camera work, and how it shifts from fixed angles to following your character around corners.
Obviously, would have been great to have a little more content - I sort of had a hard time keeping up with the dialog, would have maybe been nice to space it out a bit more. The ending does feel a little abrupt, but totally understandable for a jam game. Overall, great work!
Thanks! I've been playing a lot of PS1 games for a while now, so I'm glad I was finally able to put the knowledge to use.
Yeah, sorry about the dialogue all being a bit squashed together; I did the environment design first, based on what I thought I could achieve before the deadline, but then decided that voiceover was what I needed to tie it all together, so I had to fit it into what had already become a shorter experience than I'd initially planned! I guess narrative design is important, huh?
This is a short and effective story-based horror game. It's more in the line of a narrative experience / walking sim with some light platforming elements, but this is reinforced by some really nice voice acting and a commitment to scripting out a narration of the character and her situation.
The modelling on the interior is fantastic. You've created some really nice industrial style environments that perfectly contribute to the story and don't look generic at all. The horror visual effects are original and inventive and show an excellent eye for using tricks to creep the player out.
Credit goes to the voice actors too. It's hard to carry a game with voice acting and it's particularly difficult to do it professionally. I think they nailed their roles and avoided sounding overly dramatic; just detached professionals on a bad job. Maybe some background music could have punctuated it.
Contrary to others, I think keeping the game ambiguous and strange was a great decision. I think what players might be referring to is the lack of closure that signals the end of the game. An idea for this is to add some short credits at the end of a game to wind players down instead of back to menu.
As other players have said, the need jump was not at first intuitive - I think many players would have missed the first ledge. Introducing players to important mechanics in simple ways first can help. For instance, if players had to jump over a small crate earlier, they may notice they can access the ledge.
I did a playthrough video below:
Great job! I hope that you continue to make very well-crafted narrative experiences in future.
Thanks for your detailed review of the game! I'm glad you liked the environment; It feels like most of my development time was spent on building that! I'd not done a lot of environment modelling before, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out.
I agree that the ending probably needs something rather than just dumping the player back on the title screen. I blame the fact that I didn't get around to working on the ending until the very last day of the jam! I'll add a 'To be continued' or a 'Thanks for playing' in the next build.
And yeah, the ability to jump needs to be introduced a bit better; I had plans for tooltips to introduce all of the controls, but ran out of time, so the one for switches was the only one I managed. Jumping over a crate is a good idea, too, so I'll probably implement something like that.
It was nice to have an intuitive manipulation, but I think it would have been nice to have a hint that if we crossed over to another platform, we could follow a different route.
I almost turned off the game without opening the door the first open the door.
I don't know if I cleared the game properly. Suddenly, the title screen appears again.
Thanks for playing, and for your comments! Sorry you had a hard time with the first door though; I did wonder if I'd made that obvious enough, and the answer is probably 'no'. Also, if you don't open the door first, it's quite a long walk back up to the switch, which is a little frustrating. I'll try and tutorialise that a little better in the next build!
And yes, you did complete the game! I'm thinking that maybe a 'To be continued' before it returns to the title screen would be a bit less confusing.
This is such a good experience! The voice acting is top of the shelf. I wanted it to go on for much longer and find out more details about all of this.
The environmental design is amazing and pulls you right into the situation and the pacing is also very pleasent. For me it was just right. I had enough time to gawk at the facility and at the same time not lose track of what was going on via voice comms.
Thanks for playing, and for your kind words! I'm glad the pacing worked for you in the end; I made the narrative elements separate from the environment, and was feeling like I needed a couple of extra rooms to space things out some more.
Comments
Really really good, cartoonish but still scary and atmospheric, love the way the graphics look. Can't wait for more!
Nice little underwater stroll :)
Full Playthrough No Commentary
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GOOD WORK DEV
I must say that i'm pretty impressed by the level of polish of your game. It's always nice the get some voices in short experiences, it gives an awesome immersive feeling and keep you in a flow of concentration. The camera work insentivises well the fact that we are entering in a disorienting and unknown place.
The kind of horror you invoke fits well with the context of your narrative and the old school animations provides a sort of uncannyness to the phenomenoms appearing on screen. I really liked the time distortion moment and how it was executed.
The only things that I would point out is that as a non native english speaker, it would have helped a bit to get some english subtitles backing the audio (but I get that for a jam project that's a bit picky aha)
I really enjoyed the time passed in this wrecked ship, congrats !
Thanks for your thoughtful critique! One of the things I was least sure about when I submitted the game was how well the horror elements worked, as a couple of them are a little goofy, so it's good to know that they don't feel too out of place.
And yeah. I definitely agree that subtitles would have been a good addition; even as a native English speaker I prefer to have them. When I first added the voiceover I planned to add subtitles to go with it, but it was just one of those things that I had to cut due to time constraints! Hope it wasn't too hard to follow what was going on, either way.
Thanks for playing!
Very nice, I've been following your progress as a fellow Unreal dev - I appreciate how authentic you were able to get the PS1-look and in general the atmosphere and vibe of this project is very well done! In particular, I love the camera work, and how it shifts from fixed angles to following your character around corners.
Obviously, would have been great to have a little more content - I sort of had a hard time keeping up with the dialog, would have maybe been nice to space it out a bit more. The ending does feel a little abrupt, but totally understandable for a jam game. Overall, great work!
Thanks! I've been playing a lot of PS1 games for a while now, so I'm glad I was finally able to put the knowledge to use.
Yeah, sorry about the dialogue all being a bit squashed together; I did the environment design first, based on what I thought I could achieve before the deadline, but then decided that voiceover was what I needed to tie it all together, so I had to fit it into what had already become a shorter experience than I'd initially planned! I guess narrative design is important, huh?
Cheers for playing!
This is a short and effective story-based horror game. It's more in the line of a narrative experience / walking sim with some light platforming elements, but this is reinforced by some really nice voice acting and a commitment to scripting out a narration of the character and her situation.
The modelling on the interior is fantastic. You've created some really nice industrial style environments that perfectly contribute to the story and don't look generic at all. The horror visual effects are original and inventive and show an excellent eye for using tricks to creep the player out.
Credit goes to the voice actors too. It's hard to carry a game with voice acting and it's particularly difficult to do it professionally. I think they nailed their roles and avoided sounding overly dramatic; just detached professionals on a bad job. Maybe some background music could have punctuated it.
Contrary to others, I think keeping the game ambiguous and strange was a great decision. I think what players might be referring to is the lack of closure that signals the end of the game. An idea for this is to add some short credits at the end of a game to wind players down instead of back to menu.
As other players have said, the need jump was not at first intuitive - I think many players would have missed the first ledge. Introducing players to important mechanics in simple ways first can help. For instance, if players had to jump over a small crate earlier, they may notice they can access the ledge.
I did a playthrough video below:
Great job! I hope that you continue to make very well-crafted narrative experiences in future.
- FSV
Thanks for your detailed review of the game! I'm glad you liked the environment; It feels like most of my development time was spent on building that! I'd not done a lot of environment modelling before, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out.
I agree that the ending probably needs something rather than just dumping the player back on the title screen. I blame the fact that I didn't get around to working on the ending until the very last day of the jam! I'll add a 'To be continued' or a 'Thanks for playing' in the next build.
And yeah, the ability to jump needs to be introduced a bit better; I had plans for tooltips to introduce all of the controls, but ran out of time, so the one for switches was the only one I managed. Jumping over a crate is a good idea, too, so I'll probably implement something like that.
Thanks for playing!
Voice acting and graphics were very good.
The puzzle was simple and interesting.
It was nice to have an intuitive manipulation, but I think it would have been nice to have a hint that if we crossed over to another platform, we could follow a different route.
I almost turned off the game without opening the door the first open the door.
I don't know if I cleared the game properly. Suddenly, the title screen appears again.
Thanks for playing, and for your comments! Sorry you had a hard time with the first door though; I did wonder if I'd made that obvious enough, and the answer is probably 'no'. Also, if you don't open the door first, it's quite a long walk back up to the switch, which is a little frustrating. I'll try and tutorialise that a little better in the next build!
And yes, you did complete the game! I'm thinking that maybe a 'To be continued' before it returns to the title screen would be a bit less confusing.
Cheers!
Cheers!
This is such a good experience! The voice acting is top of the shelf. I wanted it to go on for much longer and find out more details about all of this.
The environmental design is amazing and pulls you right into the situation and the pacing is also very pleasent. For me it was just right. I had enough time to gawk at the facility and at the same time not lose track of what was going on via voice comms.
Thanks for playing, and for your kind words! I'm glad the pacing worked for you in the end; I made the narrative elements separate from the environment, and was feeling like I needed a couple of extra rooms to space things out some more.